They looked strikingly enchanting, exquisite with the woman's soft fingers delicately grasping the man's arm yet their was a domineering aura making it harder to stare too long at them as if there was threat when his arm encircled the girl's waist....as if he was saying you look at her with your dirty eyes...you die.

If it was someone else being held so possessively, it might have come out as an exaggeration and people would have rolled their eyes but how come men not pay attention and look a bit too long at the beauty so lovely that it made people hard to breathe, sparkling green eyes glimmering every second when the man tried explaining her the intention behind every painting sometime joking otherwise serious and sincere.

Her ginger hair was held by a teal headband while the simplest pastel coloured dress made her look like the dandelion flower scattered by the wind before flowing into air.

She was like clouds and the man beside her was like sun.

Darius touched a sculpture, tracing the ridges on the face of the carved woman who looked frail and withered and then looked at Roxanne.

"I had originally thought a person like you must be sheltered but...." then how come you can depict such devastating sadness....he wanted to say that but then cannot.

The blush coating Roxanne's cheek from the time he had held her close sensing the prying eyes on her was completely gone replaced with a solemn look.

Those stone carved eyes seemed to complain about endless sorrow, lifelike....their pain was as if Roxanne has seen them herself.

"I was never sheltered, I love peace and the only thing that I wanted to have back when I was little was peace. My mother was constantly haunted by nightmares and I became a firsthand witness to what the world is all about."

She was so innocent but unlike those who had been bound by the world to stay innocent......she chose it, choose to become calm and silent, letting the nature take it course and cherish herself.

Because if she would not then who will? Darius felt a string in his heart plucked. This girl made him feel avalanche of emotions.

"There is a war going out somewhere, people are dying, children are starving and girl are being abused. Some people dream of a life like me. It might be a bit difficult but that doesn't makes me a very sympathetic person...there are many people who have a dysfunctional family, many who don't have things perfect.

This sorrow in the picture is not mine, I have nothing that one should pity about. This sorrow is my mother's. Unlike her I have a good life."

Roxanne wanted to say more but she just looked at Darius as his palm stroked her head as if she was a wounded pet making her smile.

"Then why do you make this? Why remember the things that make you sad again and again?"

"S-Sir...." for a second she almost stopped breathing as her eyes widened when he came closer.....she could smell him......so nice, he felt so-

"Sweetheart" His questioning eyes made her cough and look down for a moment trying to calm her nerves before she looked at him again her lips wobbling.

"I use a black scarf to tie around my eyes and then I just feel the clay at my fingertips and draw whatever my fingers allow me to, its natural......I feel sorrow I-and I pour it in my sculpture.....Darius I-I went to therapy after all and this-" she looked at his arms around her and her eyelashes trembled.

"-it makes me so...vulnerable"

Darius saw the dazed, lost look in her eyes and held her hand before pulling her out of the exhibition winding corridor after corridor, till they have reached the outer threshold of the Krys mansion beside his car. He stood directly infront of her as they both looked at one another in a complete dark night filled with nothing but soft light illuminating both of their features.

"I was born out of a wedlock between a maid and the son of a wealthy family." His silver irises clashed with her greens.

Roxanne felt as if the surrounding were set on buzzing sparks flying. How couldn't she see, not understand what was the meaning of this.

If this is not giving a person advantage over you then what it is...she told him, her darkness and thus he shared his to compliment hers.

"There is so much that I would not be able to express, so much that I would not be able to say. Words are meaningless for me Roxanne, I see you....." his head bent a little holding Roxanne's shoulders gently as the angel looked at him meeting his eyes and then and there was a layer of warmth in them akin to need.

Not the one to fulfil sexual fantasies but as if her soul was sighing and saying, finally I found you.

"I see you and it feels as if I let you slip from my fingers....it would be my lifetime regret." There it was....the words that were so prolonged and now we're finally escaping his lips.

Did she felt too, not the sparks neither the desire but under that exterior did she felt the need of constantly worrying stop, as if something was being searched since eons and right then and there it came to an end.

When Roxanne buried her face in his chest he already knew the answer.

__________________________

Elegant and graceful, those were the two words striking the mind of the innocent doe who came infront of the fifty year old French restaurant that was packed upto the brim. Even though the place comprised of many couples and families dining extravagantly as it could be seen from outside yet it was still spacious and luxurious to the very heart of it.

Vivid apricot sunrays grasped its glimmering light before sprinkling it on her ginger hair making the girl glow like an ethereal angel as she stood outside the diner with her bicycle whose basket was adoring exotic flowers.